


swallowed my heart and fled but i want it back now baby

by irrelevant



Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Political Animals
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, M/M, This is weird, and probably makes no sense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-22
Updated: 2018-07-22
Packaged: 2019-06-14 07:34:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15383817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/irrelevant/pseuds/irrelevant
Summary: Momma bought you piano lessons, not action figures. You’ve never even read the comics. You have Captain America sprawled naked across his bed like the Joint Chiefs’ favorite collective wet dream and you were never even a fan.





	swallowed my heart and fled but i want it back now baby

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this forever ago and just... never posted it. it's short and weird. that seems to be all i write anymore.

You meet a boy.

(That’s how this song goes, right?)

In this town anyone can meet anyone from anywhere for any reason but you always meet a boy. Only, this one's a man by anyone from anywhere's standards. He is the man. His eyes are the same true American blue as your favorite vibrator, he looks like he just took a bat to the head and you? You will take that for what it’s worth. (You take them all for what they're worth, and if you'd rather be had, well.)

You lean this way and Rogers swallows up and down, flares his nostrils, doesn't back up. He'll be gorgeous against a wall and you are going to pay up in scraped knees, palms and all. Rogers smells like he's worth every cent the DoD is dying to spend revitalizing Project Rebirth. You think you’ll take your taste now, thanks.

 

"You know," you say, close enough for each and every tabloid's evil minded pleasure, "I’d bet you almost anything Bud’s wishing they'd thawed you out while he was in office."

Rogers says, "Who?" and he still looks like someone smacked him upside the head and that is just adorable. "Daddy dearest," you say, and also, "You're adorable," and Rogers' cheeks get raw. Red rises up from his collar in a veritable flood.

More than half the people in this room would like to lick something off of Captain Rogers’ flawlessly flushed throat, but why stop there? He has the kind of mouth high school girls and pretty boys in dark eyeliner coat their lips in sparkling gloss in hopes of achieving that which will never come to pass. "Don’t look now," you say, “but you’re catching flies.” And to hell with this, you really are done with this waiting gig. Rogers’ mouth is closing, the last train is on its way out of the station and there is homicide hot on the back of your neck; this isn't how you operate, but Momma is smiling. Dougie is sweating bullets and there aren’t enough cameras in the world to cover the collective Hammond ego.

"Want to get out of here?" you say, and Rogers' improbable mouth looks like yes but the rest of his face falls a little. (So do you, but save that for later.)

 

You say, later but not by enough, "Well that was easy. Are you going to tell me why?" She says, "Need to know, sweetheart, and you don’t yet," and she hangs up while you’re laughing.

 

Blood is forever whether it's blue or red and running down your face or maybe your legs. You went to school with or got beat up by or fucked (it’s all the same thing, really) one or two someones who know the right someone else inside SHIELD. Turns out, Steven Grant Rogers was born in 1918 and you are still years and years older. It's fucking hilarious until the image files.

 

Pick an adjective, any adjective. Give them a good enough sound bite and you’ll be yesterday’s news until your next big screwup. Fuck knows this show got old a long time ago but it’s a classic, never goes out of style, waving mics and questions like nobody’s business. Well, they are nobody’s business, except for how most of the country would beg to differ. You’ve been here so many times you’ve worn a groove, but the last time it was this bad—

Fifteen is the year after BE Ellis gate crashes Norma Jean’s favorite private party with a chainsaw. Happy birthday, Mr President, it’s just that kind of year. That kind of melodramatic apocalypse now crap with an all Elton John soundtrack on low, because all those girls, they just love Alice that fucking much and now everyone knows it.

But then sixteen. Then seventeen and then eighteen, and then you lose count. You lose. (Don’t ask, do not ask what.)

Eighteen and you breathe wrong. You suck forgetting up your nose and it blows through your sinuses with its arms raised in a v for victory, screws your brain sideways for kicks. You lose again then, you mislay the keys to Daddy’s kingdom, you give up the eyes Grandma bequeathed you and you forget to replace them. You lose your fucking name, but whoops, everyone else forgets to forget where you left the rest of the body. Oh no, fuck no, how can they forget when you’re out there giving it up for free?

And now, now you’re being courted by patriotism personified. Berg’s face is a classic picture for your bathroom wall. You won’t even throw razor blades, it’s that good. You’ll wait till later and swallow them all.

 

They'll ask, much later, where were you when the SHRA passed? You’ll be the guy saying, I was fucking Captain America, how about you?

 

Momma’s hair always smells like cigarettes whether she’s six months after the fact or not, although nothing else of hers ever does. Not her clothes or her cars, sure as hell not the oval office. She says, “I need this to go through, TJ, we need that,” and she’s family, she is still yours, just as you have always been hers.

The things you have done, are doing, will do for family. Wavering white lines on green marble sink tops come in a distant third.

 

Art is Steve's thing, not clubs and clubbing, but he's polite about it. (Such a good boy, you told him twenty minutes ago on your knees in an unsanitary-looking bathroom stall with his come on your face.)

You'll get yours later, you promise him, and he is one of three people who still believe in your promises. It makes you want to hate him and also live up to whatever illusions he's still holding.

So art happens, okay?

And well, it is definitely not your thing, no matter how hard you've been indoctrinated, but the secretary of defense is currently giving you a nasty look over the top of what could qualify as sculpture if you turn just so and squint, and that? Really, really is your thing.

 

It’s not a question of taste or style. Who looks prettier on whose arm is the internet question for the ages. Every rag online and off has an answer, but you could tell them there’s no contest.

You get it now. Those guys staring down while you opened wide god, look up, just look at me, oh jesus your eyes, fuck, like you were sucking them straight through into heaven. But here’s the really funny part.

Momma bought you piano lessons, not action figures. You’ve never even read the comics. You have Captain America sprawled naked across his bed like the Joint Chiefs’ favorite collective wet dream and you were never even a fan.

“I should put a mirror on the ceiling,” you say. “You deserve to see what you look like,” you say, and Steve smiles, smiles and says, “You’re a real jerk, sometimes" like it’s the best thing to ever happen to him. Beautiful on his bare back and sweaty with it, he looks you in the eyes, always. His mouth is obscene with your spit and he’s not looking at you, not really, and that is your truth.

You kind of hate Bucky Barnes, only there's no kind of to it and that is nothing but the truth, so help you.

 

DC burns. The Winter Soldier beats Captain America’s face bloody in a recording half the Internet thinks is fake and the other half believes was uploaded by HYDRA. The day after the night before and every communications site is burning hotter than the city.

You throw your tablet at the wall and you limp away from it all like something that got kicked. You slouch fully clothed in your bone dry bathtub and hang a leg over the side: do not disturb.

There’s already a mirror on the ceiling. It works well for you, always, and you left the lights off and when you tilt your head back you see yourself, lit up like a charnel house in a fire storm.


End file.
